


We All Fall Down

by Celestialfeathers



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: A fun time for the whole family, Apocalypse, Canon Compliant, Five discovering his siblings' bodies, Gen, Graphic Descriptions of Dead Bodies, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Number Five | The Boy, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:34:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28553187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celestialfeathers/pseuds/Celestialfeathers
Summary: The sky is so wide, and so close, at the end of the world. Sometimes Five feels like he could reach out and touch the particulate that makes up the clouds, run his fingers along the bottom of the sky. The end of the world is limitless, and he hasn't figured out how to leave yet.orFive is alone after everything ends.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Allison Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Diego Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Luther Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy) & Everyone
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35





	We All Fall Down

**Author's Note:**

> I've included additional warnings in the end notes, and if there's anything I've missed, please let me know. Stay safe, and enjoy!

The sky is so wide, and so close, at the end of the world. The sun is gone, hidden by the veil of ashy particulate that fills the air. Light does its best to filter through, but it's diffuse, hazy. It's hard to breathe, hard to see, and everything feels at once so close and so far away. Sometimes Five feels like he could reach out and touch the particulate that makes up the clouds, run his fingers along the bottom of the sky. Other times it looms oppressive above and around him, a wide gray canvas that attaches forever in all directions, dwarfing and swallowing him, leaving him small and lost among the broken debris of the earth. The end of the world is limitless, and he hasn't figured out how to leave yet.

Five hadn't realized how large the city was, before. He had thought he'd known, back before he'd jumped. He'd known Griddy's—now a twisted and crumpled mass of metal and brickwork, the sign sparking neon as fires burnt it from within—and he'd known the library—burnt pages fluttering in the wind, words charred beyond legibility. There had been other places, buildings he had visited once, banks and museums and laboratories. He had saved them, the buildings and the people inside, with his siblings. The buildings are all destroyed now, collapsed architecture he can't separate from its next door neighbor, a confusing meld of material that no longer means much of anything. The people are even worse off. He doesn't know the names of anything, of anyone. It's all hazy in the smoke. 

There are things, some things he has now. Nothing from before, with the mansion destroyed beyond recovery or repair, his entire life smashed and hidden away under concrete, trapped even now behind wright iron gates that are somehow still standing. There was nothing, no one, to save there. The things Five has now are new: a wagon, cans of food, bottles of water, several first aid kits, a tarp, some bedsheets, half a mannequin. 

He hadn't meant to take that last one, exactly. It was just that he hadn't been able to find his family no matter how loudly he'd called, that every building in sight was a broken and flaming husk that spit blackness into the air, that the first body he had found hadn't had a face at all but instead a gaping hole straight through that wept blood and clear fluid. It was just that the mannequin, despite having snapped in half at the legs, was still smiling at him, vacantly encouraging in a way that made him almost want to smile back. She wouldn't bleed like the people from the missions, wouldn't rot like the corpses in the street, wouldn't feel the pain of being stuck at the end of the world like Five. The mannequin was something clean and pure and good, and she didn't weigh much, and he had a wagon. He could afford to take her. He wasn't entirely sure he could afford not to.

There are more bodies up ahead. Five's hands throb against the cool wagon handle, unaccustomed to the constant wear of use, the rumble of wheels over uneven and gritty pavement sending vibrations all up his arm. In his shoes, blisters rub against the woolen socks and leather tongue. Breathing leads to coughing if he moves too fast or inhales too quickly or too fully. Five wants to stop, but he needs to keep moving, keep looking. There must be somebody, something out there. He just needs to find it.

Five takes a few steps forward before he realizes that one of the corpses is holding something, an object trapped in the stiff grip of death. A prickling of curiosity tugs at him, and he leaves the wagon where it is, cautiously making his way over precariously perched debris. It's an eye—prosthetic, smooth and unmarred but for the blood on its surface, perfect the way the mannequin is, a work of art made for function and form—and it was clearly not removed gently. The man holding it is large, and familiar, almost. Five doesn't recognize him, for a moment, before he suddenly does with the force of a fist to the ribcage, stepping back slightly, involuntarily. It can't be, it's not allowed to be—but if it is, then there must be the others somewhere nearby. Five takes another step back, shaking, before he turns to run, run, run. 

He finds them close by, so close, almost stumbling over them. They lie slumped and crushed under rubble, so human and small. Maybe that's why it still doesn't make any sense, deep down; his siblings had always been so vibrant and loud and large with life, incapable of being anything less than extraordinary. These people, these strange adults, buried and crushed and trapped in a way his siblings never could be, are just flattened shadows, larger bodies made miniscule with silence and stillness and a great big broken world around them. And Five had known they would have grown in the seventeen years he had skipped, had known they wouldn't have let the devastation happen while they could stop it, had known that they had probably fallen in the face of whatever had caused it. He had known, but now he  _ knows _ . 

His family is here; his family is dead.

There should be a burial, he thinks distantly, dropping to his knees. His breath comes in short gasps, and his eyes are stinging. He can't afford to cry, to waste water. Dehydration is one of the biggest threats right now, and no matter how much his throat tightens and his chest aches, he can't give in. Instead, he forces himself to stare at them, the adults—the corpses—his siblings have become. They've been lucky so far, decay not yet leaching into their skin and eyes and blood, still maintaining a good resemblance of life if he pretends not to notice certain things. It won't last forever, and even though they'll still rot underground too, it feels like the decent thing to do. Five just isn't sure he can do it, and there's nobody around to do it for him. 

He tries, because he has to do that much for them, rising to his feet and staggering over to the nearest bodies. The concrete is heavy and tears at the skin of his palms, ripping little gashes in that sting in the air. He isn't strong enough to lift the larger pieces, so he has to push at them, shifting them enough to let gravity do the harder work. There isn't much on Allison or Klaus, and though it still takes him far longer than he'd like—as though there were any amount of time he'd like to be doing this, as though he can stand doing this at all—he manages to drag them away from their initial resting places. Pulling them along is strange, at once stiff and unresisting, like half-melted plastic dolls. Their hands are cold in his, and his grip on their wrists feels too cruel, an insult. At least he pulls them along the rough ground on their backs, leaving their faces blank and unmarred, mannequin-like. Neither of them are smiling, but they don't look sad, either. They look like nothing, and there's no comfort to be had there. They lie next to each other where he leaves them, wrists turned upwards, umbrellas to the sky in some sort of reminder, remembrance.

Diego is worse off, buried on a slope, so the smaller rubble underfoot murmurs precariously with every shift of weight, and the concrete is still so heavy. It feels like a dance, one that threatens a sprained ankle with every movement. Five goes to shove a particularly difficult slab off of Diego's chest, adjusting his footing to apply more force, and there is a sickening softness and a snapping sound that echoes in his blood. Five freezes in place, before forcing himself to slowly look down. Under his foot, Diego's wrist is bent in the wrong direction, the skin around it bunched and bleeding sluggishly, pulled out by gravity rather than pushed by a pulse. It hadn't been broken when he'd found everyone. Five had broken it. That was him, he'd done that, that was Five's fault. He can't look away from it even as he steps away, the wrong angle, the slow blood, the distorted tattoo. He'd made it worse, he'd made everything worse. He shouldn't be here, he can't be here, everything is ruined and wrong and broken and it must be his fault, because he hadn't been there. Dad had said he shouldn't go, shouldn't leave, but he'd been so foolish, so arrogant, he'd thought he'd known everything but he knows nothing, nothing at all except his family dead before him, just broken little toy soldiers scattered about, and Five is the last one standing, surrounded by a fallen army, and he's no use now with the war already lost and the world already razed and burnt and broken. They lost, he was wrong, and this is the punishment.

A moment's silence passes, holding its breath, before Five tilts his head towards the sky and screams. It tears at his throat on the way up like acid and blood and violence, ripping up and out of him as if he'd yanked it out of the core of him, burning him up from the inside out. It's electric, like the feeling of a jump running along him as he screams, animal and inhuman and human all at once. He screams again, and again, and again, barely stopping to breathe. The sound of it travels to the swirling sky and beyond before is swallowed whole, and it is gone, and there is quiet.

There is time, somewhere. 

Five doesn't really feel it happen. He doesn't quite remember it either, a foggy sort of thing, slipping through his grasp like sand. Everything feels a little off-balance, further even than it had before, tilting and skewing in some imperceptible direction. There had been Diego beneath him, half unearthed and broken-wristed, with Luther off to the side, still completely covered. Then there was that shifting, and now there are four bodies in a row, neatly lined up in parallel, a little battered but mostly intact. A part of Five almost thinks that someone else must have come by, must have helped, but his hands are bleeding heavily and his breathing is stuttering fast with exertion and he aches with every muscle in his body to the point he thinks he'll be sick. Trembles shake up and down his spine, and he wraps his arms close around him, ignoring the stinging, sharp pain it causes in his palms. His throat burns, raw and hot. The smoke has gone to his head, turning his thoughts fluid and removed, and he can't hold on to anything much. Time is wrong, his memory is wrong, but it's almost a relief that it's wrong like this, where it's almost like it never happened. He doesn't try to remember.

Now that they're all out from under the concrete, Five isn't sure what to do next. A small, childish part of his brain wants to lay down beside them, wants to curl up to hold and be held. At home, before, he had never really done that sort of thing, putting space and distance between himself and them instead, almost never initiating any meaningful contact himself. It hadn't been that he'd been ashamed, or that he hadn't sometimes felt the pull to feel someone else's presence and warmth beside him, or that he'd hated the times he had relented and let a sibling close. No, it had just felt like weakness to give in, to let people feel that he was more than just an illusion, a trick of the light, here one instant and gone the next. He had felt weak when he let them close, and he'd needed to be strong, to be the best. He needs to be strong now, stronger than he's ever been or ever had to be, and he just feels alone. Five wants to hold his siblings close, and it's only the knowledge that nobody will hold him in return that prevents him from gripping tight and never letting go.

Instead, he takes a moment, breathes, tries to push aside all irrelevant feelings and clear his head, to make space for some sort of rationality to re-emerge from wherever it's been hiding. Five needs to be strong now. He had already been planning to go back before he stumbled across them, one-two-three-four, so this doesn't change things. If anything, it will just be motivation, a story to tell when he gets back.  _ I saw you as adults _ , he'll say.  _ I know what you look like. I know what happens. _ But he won't say that last one, because he's going to change everything, so he won't know what will happen except that it will be better. He won't have four—probably six—dead siblings, just a memory, like a bad dream. He'll know what Ben and Vanya look like not because he finds their dead bodies later, but because he watches them grow up, grows up with them. He'll know what the others look like when they're smiling, laughing, moving. So, really, none of this should matter. Five should leave his siblings where they are, untouched. But he can't. He'll remember it, even if they never know. He has to do something for them, for his family that fought and died in a battle he had left them to fight without him.

Burying them isn't an option. It had taken too much energy and effort to get them out, and digging graves will take too long. His time is better spent looking for food and shelter and information. Burning, then. Fires are still sprinkled throughout the city, flickering brightly against the shuttered darknesses of night and smoke. It wouldn't be difficult to find untapped gasoline to pour over them, less difficult still to find a source to ignite it. Still, he hesitates at the thought. Cremation is a kinder fate than being left to rot on the ground, surely, but the idea of reducing them to nothing, of mixing them with the ash that fills the air, is intolerable as well. Five feels trapped, caught between impossibilities at all angles, claustrophobic in a way he can't jump away from. It's all pressing down, pressing in on him. He needs to be strong.

Five's hands are still bleeding. It's only as he digs his fingers tight into his palm that he remembers, hissing with the sudden shock of what had been a dull pain. The wagon still awaits him off to the side, and he's grateful he'd had the forethought to pick up first aid kits. Rubbing alcohol burns the wounds, but it also cleans them, along with the rest of the grime from his hands. The bandages are unopened, clean, and they're bright white against a landscape filled to gray and red. Blood spots the material, but it doesn't soak through the first layer, and with another few wraps around his hands he's done. The mannequin watches him do so, impassive. Her hand is extended, and he takes it, suddenly, desperately. The plastic of her is cool and smooth beneath his fingertips, solid and light through the bandaging, something to hang on to and never let go.

Five needs something like that from them, he realizes. He needs an anchor, a reminder that he found them, of what had happened because he had left them, that they hadn't always been just ash on a breeze. The prosthetic eye sits in his shorts pocket, put there in a daze, but that's hardly token enough. That's information, the last clue his brother had been able to give, a gift that may be able to change the past. It's a precious thing, but it can't be all. There must be something more.

On wobbly feet, Five returns to his siblings, this time with a more discerning eye. This isn't looting, not really. Everyone always borrowed everything; Klaus stole nail polish from Allison, Vanya snuck books from Ben, Diego hid Luther's figurines. Nothing was one person's alone, no matter how hard they tried. This is just that, with the added bonus that they won't miss what he takes, won't come into his room demanding to know where something was, won't shriek in rage as he tells them that it's still in their room, looking as though it had never been gone at all. They won't do any of that, and he doesn't have a room anymore, and he's not going to be able give anything back.

Klaus always had something interesting in him, so Five starts there. The jacket is nice, some sort of soft flannel on the outside, but the powdered remains of a building have already worked their way into the fibers, ruining the texture. In a pocket is, as expected, a little bag of some sort of drug that Five doesn't recognize. Klaus had seemed happier when he'd started smoking, smiling more and startling less. Five had never understood the need for it, but now, surrounded by corpses, the appeal is suddenly starkly obvious. It's tempting, in an abstract sort of way, to try it, to lose himself and forget about everything around him, but Five already knows he can't. He needs to be sharp to be able to get back, and he probably won't be able to find more of whatever this is. The withdrawal, too, could prove fatal if the dose itself doesn't. Besides, he doesn't even know how it's taken, and the smoke is so thick in the air that the idea of purposefully inhaling more is repulsive. He leaves the little bag in Klaus' pocket. 

There isn't much else on him, but in a hidden inner pocket of the jacket Five finds two photo booth film strips covered in doodles. Klaus is pulling strange faces in most of the pictures, though one or two look candid, caught off guard by the flash. He's holding up bunny ears in a few as well, presumably behind one of the ghosts, since a cartoon one has been scribbled over it in sketchy black ink. Maybe Klaus had finally found a ghost that hadn't terrified him, a friend to rely on and help him. Maybe they're together now, in whatever afterlife exists beyond what Klaus could see. They wouldn't have stuck around, not with nobody else left on Earth to haunt or get revenge on. Hopefully they're happy, wherever they are. Five slips the strips in his pocket and moves on.

Allison's jacket is covered in dust as well, but it's made of leather, so it sweeps off easily. It's difficult to remove from her body, something Five hadn't even tried with Klaus' ruined one, her arms both stiff and loose, unhelpful. He eventually gets it off, though, and after a moment of consideration, pulls off his blazer and shrugs the jacket on. It isn't quite his style, he doesn't think—he's never chosen his own clothes before, so he isn't quite sure how to tell—and it's fitted for an adult woman rather than a teenage boy. Still, it keeps out the wind better than the blazer does, so it's worth keeping. He takes it off and dons the blazer once more, folding the jacket neatly, the way he had been taught. A moment of thought, then Five unfolds it and puts it on the mannequin. It looks nice on her, and he can almost imagine that she appreciates the gesture.

Allison's wallet is in her pocket, and Five pulls it out to rifle through the contents. The money and credit cards are useless, of course, but she has a driver's license with her photo and information on it. There's the sheen of some photos in another section of the wallet, and when Five pulls them out he almost drops them in shock. It's Allison, and there's a strange man with his arms around her, smiling at her like she's the sun. That isn't the surprise, not as much as the next one, showing an infant swaddled in blankets, looking up at the camera with huge eyes. After that is a collection of photos that vary the combination of the three of them, happy in every shot. Allison had been married. Allison had been a mother. Allison had had a  _ daughter _ . And Five had never met her. His hand shakes as he flips the photos over, finds the names Patrick and Claire written on the back in Allison's looping handwriting.  _ Claire _ . He puts the photos carefully back into their place, sure not to bend them or catch them on any edges. He finishes checking Allison over, gentler now, and he doesn't find anything else. He doesn't find a wedding ring, and he doesn't find any pictures of the family Five knows. He pretends that it doesn't feel like a disappointment, and moves on.

Diego isn't wearing a jacket, but he is wearing a harness full of knives. It figures; he had always been carrying them around at home, flipping them idly whenever he was feeling bored, threatening to give Luther a close shave with them when he was irritated. The harness is easier to get off than Allison's jacket, designed to be removed quickly and without much participation from the wearer. It's too big for him even on the smallest setting, but he takes it anyway. Better to keep them contained than to just let them rattle around the wagon. 

A radio is hooked onto Diego's waist as well. It looks like a police scanner, specifically, but they had never needed the cops before, always acting above the law, better and stronger than even a whole squad of policemen. Maybe Diego had become a cop, though his outfit certainly suggests otherwise. More likely, he had been using it to avoid them, or to get information. It's probably useless now, but if there are survivors, they might communicate using radio. Five places it in the wagon alongside everything else, and returns to his search. Like Allison, Diego also had his wallet and driver's license, and the only other thing of interest was a note scrawled on a scrap of paper tucked in with the dollar bills, which simply reads,  _ I know things are over between us, but I still care about you. Please, stay safe, Diego.  _ There's no name there. Presumably there had been no need for it, no other person it could have been. There's nothing else anywhere to indicate who it was, so Five is forced to take it as it is.

Finally, there's Luther. He had gotten big, far bigger than Five would have predicted, even though Luther had always been the tallest of them. His overcoat still manages to cover him completely, somehow, and Five debates for a second whether he should even try to remove it. The coat won't fit him, would dwarf him and then some, but it could be good for when the temperature sometimes unexpectedly plummets, sending him from sweating to shivering in a snap. The material looks thick, warm, and the idea of using it as bedding or a blanket, of curling up in it at night instead of using just a tarp and some bedsheets sounds warm, comforting. It's worth the hassle.

As Five finally gets one sleeve off, though, it becomes clear that there's something strange about Luther. His body doesn't look quite human, covered in wiry fur and bulked in a way that seems slightly off from human. Maybe this is some sort of late-blooming side effect of his powers, though Five isn't quite sure how it would be related. In any case, it doesn't matter now, and he manages to free the coat. There's only one thing in it, a crumpled paper logbook that looks like it's for recording samples. On the inside cover, below the printed text, Five sees that Luther has written something:  _ My Poems. By Luther Hargreeves (Number One).  _ Five snorts a laugh at that, the first time since landing in a warped future. Luther, a poet. Who would have thought? The logbook goes back in the overcoat, which gets added to the slowly growing pile on the wagon. He pats Luther down, but his pockets are all empty, not even a wallet or ID on him. There will be no picture to remember Luther by, but the logbook might contain some sort of information about whatever threat had gotten the better of them all. If not, there are at least some poems to read. It will have to be enough.

That's it, then. Five straightens, spine crackling as he does so, and he feels tired, so tired. He aches, and the cuts along his body and on his hands rebel against him, and even breathing is an effort. Still, he has to keep going. He has to finish this before he can stop, can rest. 

There's the remains of a convenience store scattered down the street just a block away. A couple of metal gas cans lie under the wreckage, dented but mercifully unbroken. They slosh with liquid as Five tests how much remains. They're full. A rack of lighters lies nearby, fallen across the ground in a jumbled mess. The first six don't work, refusing to light no matter how many times he flicks the sparkwheel, but the seventh comes through, giving off a strong and gentle flame. Prizes found, Five slips the lighter away and grabs the cannisters, his arms straining after all the heavy lifting he's already done, his hands burning as the handle rubs along the bandages, wearing them loose and damp. Each measured, shaky step sends the gasoline into a smooth rhythm back and forth, constant as a tide, a metronome. Five's heart is beating high in his throat, keeping time with his steps, the sound, a panic slowly rising as he does his best to stay calm, stay on tempo. He can't afford to hesitate or lose his nerve. The decision has already been made, and it's time to execute it.

Five rounds the corner of where a wall had once been, and his siblings are in view again, just as he had left them. His heart chokes him as he approaches, as he stands over them, their final fate in his hands. With trembling fingers, he undoes the caps, lets them fall to the ground. The smell of gasoline fills the air, cutting through the smoke, strong and dizzying. Five takes one long last look, memorizing their faces, searing every detail he can into his memory. Then, he pours the gasoline, lets it form a waterfall that soaks them through, dampening their hair and clothes, puddling on their skin and the ground around them. It almost looks like water except for the rainbow film along the surface, clinging to them and covering them fully. They're fully saturated by the time the last drop has fallen, and Five steps back to what is hopefully a safe distance. He pulls the lighter out of his pocket, flicks the sparkwheel and watches it burn, flickering in the wind. His heart pulses in time, erratic, fast. He's shaking, slightly, trembling with it all, it's all too much, but it has to be done. It has to be done.

After one more long moment, everything in standstill except for the flickering flame, the roiling smoke, the beat of his heart, Five sends the lighter into the rainbow-slick pool surrounding his siblings.

It catches quickly and with a sense of imminent finality, the bright flames rushing up and out, running along the puddled gasoline, caressing and covering and consuming his siblings quickly. Five can see their silhouettes through the fire as it dances upwards, can see the way their clothes disintegrate and their skin blackens. Smoke billows up from them, thick as ink, joining the vast cloud above. It won't burn forever; the gasoline will be consumed, used into nothingness, and the fire will fade, burning down lower and lower until there is nothing left of it. For now, though, it roars, reaching up high, burning like the brightest star on Earth. His family is in there, the core of a supernova, extraordinary. They are their bodies, the fire, the ash going up and up and up to become a part of the sky, a sky so wide and close Five can almost reach out and touch it. They are here. They are gone.

Five watches his siblings burn, and knows that he will save them one day, whatever it takes.

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for graphic depictions of dead bodies, cremation, slight injury, accidental injury to a dead body, survivor's guilt, general angst of the apocalypse. All of this is pretty much the central idea of this chapter, so it can't really be avoided. Stay safe!
> 
> I have to say, it was very weird to write "the mannequin" instead of "Dolores." It felt kind of dehumanizing, which is odd because she isn't human and is, in fact, a mannequin and a figment of Five's imagination. Also, I tried to mostly stick with the scene from the show, but they weren't covered in quite so much debris as I've put in here, so let's just chalk that one up to artistic license and call it a day.
> 
> So, this really didn't turn into the story I had planned. I still like how it turned out, but I'm figuring out what to do next with it, since it was supposed to be multi-chapter with a focus that doesn't really work with it anymore. I might leave it as is, I might add more chapters without that device, and/or I might add another story that does something along the lines of what I originally intended and make it a series. I do have a few ideas I'm excited about for the other chapters and stories, but I always have to work up the motivation to actually write them, so it may just be a one-shot, depending. We'll see!
> 
> Let me know what you think, and you can come bother me about The Umbrella Academy at [all-tua-much.tumblr.com](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/all-tua-much)!


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